A FORMER Cabinet minister in Margaret Thatcher's government is being investigated in connection with historic child sex offences and is facing arrest in the near future, it has emerged.
The former Tory politician is being investigated by detectives leading Operation Fernbridge, which is investigating claims that political figures and others sexually abused boys at various locations in England.
There have already been two arrests: a former care-home boss, and a Roman Catholic priest.
Scotland Yard said that the charges related to seven victims aged between nine and 15, with the alleged offences dating back to the 1970s and 1980s. A third, unnamed man was interviewed but later released with no further action taken.
The former minister is believed to be the highest-profile target of Operation Fernbridge detectives.
One source said last night: "The police do not care how important or high profile they are - these people will not be getting away with it any longer."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article